]]>For some reason I’m struggling to get some work done on my new novel and Hope Hicks resigned yesterday and Jared Kushner’s security clearance was downgraded, gosh darn it, and I can’t stop thinking about those kids in Florida but I need to work on my fiction but then Trump calls Sessions Mr. Magoo, and he’s right, of course, Sessions is a fucking racist, hillbilly, halfwit, twit (there’s a song in there) but how the hell can I focus when there is a church in Pennsylvania, maybe 45 miles from where I tried and some would say failed to grow up, that is holding a holy ceremony to bless its followers’ semi-automatic weapons as the congregants sit wearing crowns of bullets, their expressions a mix of grim and godly conviction (with a side order of tears) and googly-eyed lunacy and I’m trying to create credible characters and make them breathe though my own breath isn’t coming as easily as I’d like and our government doesn’t want to ban the weapons, isn’t going to ban the weapons, because how would we protect ourselves from imaginary threats and feel the excitement and security the illusion of power brings and get reelected not to mention there is a shitload of money involved here and politicians are nothing if not greedy, duplicitous scrotum scum, which I mean in the most nonjudgmental and almost but not quite complimentary way, the spelling of which-nonjudgmental-has always irked me, and then Carson, the most ignorant, idiotic alleged surgeon known to man or turnip-unless Trump, in addition to being a vile, spiteful, narcissistic, congenitally mendacious slug, is also an alleged surgeon-cancels his $31,000 order for office cutlery or whatever because … well because he got caught, and it looks like H. R. McMaster is on his way out, too, which is okay because, let’s face it, this entire group possesses the perfect combination of power, incompetence, and stupidity to destroy this country and the planet upon which is it an oozing pustule, that is unless Putin, who just boasted of the ability to strike Florida-also, perhaps not the worst choice of targets if we can get those kids out-with “invincible” nuclear missiles-does it first, which seems unlikely because Trump would probably just give him the keys to the entire country if he asked with his shirt off and an inflatable Russian teen hooker in his briefcase, but you never know, and of course the Republicans have decided to skip that whole gun vote thing “for now” (see also “permanently”) and vote on finances instead, which tends to be the issue that brings their salivary glands to orgasm anyway and did I mention that West Virginia schools are closed because of a strike but let’s put some money into the really great idea of arming teachers even though two fucking days ago an ARMED TEACHER sat in his classroom and fired his weapon, but what’s the worst thing that could happen, no teacher is ever going to lose his temper or shoot into a crowd in a moment of panic or get shot by a cop because … well, she is holding a gun and she is black and … or just be overpowered by a student that couldn’t get his own gun and then have a more serious problem because guns don’t kill but they do keep us from getting shot by other guns that also don’t kill, at least that’s how I understand it, and even 20% of teachers in the good ol’ USA would be a shitload of sales for the gun industry and I really need to focus on my work but then I think about Jared and Ivanka and their absolute absence of relevant knowledge or experience or intelligence and if I could just write a paragraph or two and flesh out the characters but then I’m reminded of the honorable protectors of our constitution who are sending death threats to the survivors of the Florida school slaughter and I wonder whether these are “responsible gun owners” or “good guys with guns” because to be honest it’s sometimes confusing and for some reason I can’t quite get myself into the story I’m trying to write or, well, should be trying to write, and so I eat some Ritz crackers or potato chips (honestly, I eat both, lots of both) but amazingly even that doesn’t seem to ignite my imagination or even tweak my interest and don’t even ask me about Italy and the impending election because I might just puke up all the pasta I’ve ever eaten and piss virgin olive oil until I’m drowning in it and of course Trump’s supporters still love him because he hates the same people (mostly dark) they do and the religious right is certainly not religious and is absolutely wrong though they like to bring up God quite a bit so they can feel righteous as they hate and attack and rape and pollute though I don’t see how they are different from that church in PA or, for that matter, the Taliban which also strives to keep people ignorant and to hate and/or kill people who aren’t them and meanwhile at my son’s school today they held a shooter drill, which is always nice for the kids, you know, to get outside and wonder where the next automatic round of life-shattering projectiles will come from and which of their classmates will survive the inalienable rights of the law abiding gun lovers and it’s funny, but the only people I fantasize about mowing down with an AR-15 are the ones who absolutely insist on my right to own one so thanks for that and Iowa just decide to grant gun permits to the blind and my brother is in the hospital recovering but refusing food and I wonder why but not really, not really, and the problem isn’t a gun problem, it’s a mental health problem, at least if you’re white and the right religion, or maybe it’s all gone to hell with these kids because we’ve taken God and corporal punishment out of the classroom and parents don’t beat their children quite enough to convince them that violence is wrong you little shit and doesn’t solve problems and that’s for not respecting the flag because our country is the best country damn it and if you don’t believe that you should be hanged like all the black people, sons and daughters of American slaves, that were slaughtered in our great country under that great flag in the name of all that is apparently holy but the drill is probably over now and of course my son is safe and he has no reason to doubt that, does he, no reason to be afraid when he goes to school that his young life will be a soon-to-be-forgotten part of the necessary price we pay, some of us more gladly than others, in this great country with the great flag etc., for the rights of people who believe his young life is a reasonable price to pay for the false sense of security and power and potency they get from that big black proxy penis but for some reason I just can’t put my finger on, I seem to be having difficulty focusing on my novel.
Why is that, do you think?

]]>https://www.grantjarrett.com/my-longest-sentence/feed/1Friendly_Rejections.comhttps://www.grantjarrett.com/friendly_rejections-com/
https://www.grantjarrett.com/friendly_rejections-com/#respondTue, 14 Oct 2014 20:16:50 +0000http://www.grantjarrett.com/?p=668Dear Writer or Writer Manqué: Friendly Rejections Inc. is proud to announce a brand new service for writers who are darned sick and tired of waiting weeks or... Read more »

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Right now I’m working on a novel (which I don’t talk about until it’s finished), two book reviews, a speech that I’ve been asked to give to US Air Force Academy, and preparations for my class in English Lit for the Hunter MFA Program. Also a couple of short stories. I like working in different forms and genres, and I keep finding myself in situations that require my asking new questions, and coming up with new answers. I like the challenge.

2). How does your work differ from the work of others in the same area/genre? (April Bradley added this observation to the question: Genre is such a confining word, isn’t it?)

My genre is literary fiction, so we’re talking about a huge field. I like working in the realist tradition, which is very flexible and tolerant. It allows for unlimited experimentation in form while maintaining a focus on the exploration of human character – a subject that I find endlessly interesting. How does my work differ from others? I suppose my writer’s voice is my own, as well as the particular point of view that I bring to the subject. Though, like all writers, I’ve been influenced by the writers I most admire – those who combine a crystalline prose style, a profound understanding of human nature, and a deep sense of compassion. In my case, this would be a long chain of English and American writers: Woolf, Forster, Green, Hazzard, Maxwell, Updike. And Updike and again Updike, who is arguably our greatest twentieth-century novelist, not to mention stylist.

3.) Why do you write what you do?

I write to make sense of the world, to figure out what it is I really think, to set down my own experience, and to measure inner reality against outer reality. There are all kinds of writing, and with each one of them I try to pin something essential down. If I’m writing a book review, I want to clarify for myself the points the writer is trying to make, I want to make sense of the reading experience, to measure my own response against the writer’s intention. If I write a novel, I’m trying to explain something that I find inordinately difficult to understand, to explore a problem I can’t solve otherwise. I write novels about things that trouble me, serious things I can’t make sense of otherwise. I write stories about smaller things, a moment that I find compelling or hilarious or troubling. I write essays about everything. But all for the same reason: to make sense of the world.

4). How does your writing process work?

I write first thing in the morning, as soon as I get up. I try not to talk much, and I don’t read the paper or go online before I write. I write at a computer not connected to the Internet. I write for as long as I can each day, fiction first, non-fiction later in the day. When I start out writing a novel I can only write for a few hours at a time, but the further I get, the longer I can write each day. At the end I will go into a sort of retreat, and disappear, and write all day and late into the night. My family puts up with me.Roxana Robinson is the author of nine books: five novels, three story collections and the biography of Georgia O’Keeffe. Her books have been named Notable Books of the Year, by The New York Times, she has twice won the Maine Fiction Award, as well as an NEA Grant and Guggenheim Fellowship. She is currently President of the Authors Guild.

This summer has been virtually consumed by marketing my novel and getting my baseball-addicted son to and from 47,323 little league games. But in the rare logistical interstices between those undertakings I’ve been attempting to gain traction on the two aspiring novels I started months ago, or, when I tire of the smell of burning rubber, furrowing my brow at the 60,000-word oddity I thought I’d finished four years ago. I’m still not sure all those damned words (about two old homeless men who are unaware that they share a scarring history) constitute a complete, compelling, cogent work of fiction, so I read and revise and wonder and grunt and twitch like a jellyfish in a blender. It feels as though I’m doing too much and too little at the same time, but in my hopeful (by which I mean deluded) moments I’m convinced something will fall together before I fall apart. What I really need is to land on one thing, wrestle it to the ground, and then teach it to fly. I’ve promised myself a productive autumn, but I’m not sure I trust me.

2). How does your work differ from the work of others in the same area/genre? (April Bradley added this observation to the question: Genre is such a confining word, isn’t it?)

Like most of my work, Ways of Leaving doesn’t fit easily into any category I know of, which is fine with me, if not with the publishing world. I would simply describe it as dark, humorous, and (gulp) literary, with a focus on character. Of course if I did that, nobody would even look at the cover. Oops.

Thomas McGuane and George Saunders are two enormously talented authors whose fiction could be described as I’ve described my own. What immediately differentiates my work from theirs (and McGuane’s from Saunders’) is voice, that intangible element that distinguishes an author’s work, regardless of “genre,” and makes it unique. And there are other significant differences. Saunders addresses social issues in a fairly direct (though always creative) way, whereas I never have a message in mind when I write fiction, which is not to say that large issues aren’t addressed in the course of the narrative or that readers don’t come away affected emotionally or intellectually. McGuane’s work is generally a bit more subdued than my own, and is often rooted in the American West. Although we employ some of the same tools and techniques, our visions differ and the results are distinctly our own.

3.) Why do you write what you do?

I suppose I write what I write because it is tugging and twisting inside me and wants, or perhaps needs, to come out; because I feel it intensely; and because I perceive in the characters and situations I’ve vaguely imagined something of value, some overarching truth that illuminates some aspect of what it means to be human. At its best, my fiction is an honest, unaffected expression of something I feel or think or need to get rid of so someone else can feel it and I can go have some potato chips.

4). How does your writing process work?

Very poorly, or at least very imprecisely. I have no rituals, unless you include procrastinating, binge-snacking, and napping. For me writing is often hard work, but it is an integral part of me. The most difficult part is getting started, but things usually begin to flow more smoothly when I’ve gotten far enough to know, or at least believe, that what I’m working on will eventually have the capacity to breathe on its own. Once I feel that the work is alive I rarely get stuck, and I’ve learned that when I do it’s because I’m trying to force something that isn’t right, to assert my wayward will on something that has developed a path of its own. The greatest reward is completing something I’m proud of, something touches others the way the affecting, challenging, stimulating, illuminating books I’ve read and cherished have touched me, something that will induce laughter, tears, introspection, multiple orgasms. The downside of completing something is that I then need to start something new. Boulder, hill, boulder, hill, repeat.

Coming soon, Roxana Robinson and Jim Ruland discuss their own writing processes, hopefully making more sense than I did.

Roxana Robinson is the author of nine books: five novels, three story collections and the biography of Georgia O’Keeffe. Her books have been named Notable Books of the Year, by The New York Times, she has twice won the Maine Fiction Award, as well as an NEA Grant and Guggenheim Fellowship. She is currently President of the Authors Guild.

A veteran of the Navy, Jim Ruland is the author of the novel Forest of Fortune, the short story collection Big Lonesome, and co-author with Scott Campbell, Jr. of Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch of Giving the Finger. He is the books columnist for San Diego CityBeat and a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times and Razorcake, America’s only non-profit independent music zine. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Believer, Esquire, Granta, Hobart and Oxford American Magazine. He runs the Southern California-based reading series Vermin on the Mount, now in its tenth year.

]]>Do you sometimes feel ineffective, powerless, gassy, as though your efforts don’t amount to a pocketful of moldy garbanzos? Do you yearn for an opportunity to make a difference, not the kind of difference you try to convince yourself you’re making when you reluctantly cast your vote for the least execrable candidate, but a real difference, the kind of difference you can point to and say, “Was I drunk? Or what?” The kind of difference you can point to and say, “What the hell is on my finger?” The kind of … etc.

If so, I’m afraid I can’t do a thing for you.

But, if you’d like to help raise the sales rank of my International Book Award-winning novel, I invite you to join me for Boost My Sales Rank Week from Sunday July 27th through Saturday August 2nd, 2014 AD Eastern Standard Time.

To be a part of this seditious plot, simply purchase one or more copies of Ways of Leaving at ANY TIME of day or night during the week of July 27, 2014. Then sit back and watch its sales rank shoot from obscurity to brief, illusory semi-significance. As a BONUS, you will receive, at no additional charge, a ready-to-read-and-enjoy copy of said tome, which I encourage you to read and, if you wish, review.

Let’s show the Bezos at Amazon who’s really in charge of this dump and make the world a better place for … Well, for me!

]]>https://www.grantjarrett.com/boost-sales-rank-week/feed/1Winner!https://www.grantjarrett.com/winner/
https://www.grantjarrett.com/winner/#commentsMon, 30 Jun 2014 13:43:52 +0000http://www.grantjarrett.com/?p=648Prologue: I’d like to announce that my novel, Ways of Leaving, won the “Best New Fiction” category of the 2014 International Book Awards, but I can’t find a... Read more »

I’d like to announce that my novel, Ways of Leaving, won the “Best New Fiction” category of the 2014 International Book Awards, but I can’t find a way to do it without appearing boastful.

I suppose I could spew some transparent piffle about not deserving it, but who am I to judge the judges who judged me worthy?

Chapter 1

A pinched-faced middle-aged bartender at a resort where I played in my twenties seemed to win absolutely everything. He won all the sports pools at the resort and at other bars he frequented; he won his private bets, of which there were rumored to be many; he won coin tosses and poker games; and he won the state lottery at least a couple times, though I guess he never won the big prize, since he was ultimately caught ripping the place off, after which he was promoted to head of security, which, I suppose, was yet another way to win. I mean, if anyone else had been caught robbing the workplace they would have been fired, arrested, shot, and forced to stay at the resort as a guest. But my point, to the best of my recollection, is that some people—even resort bartending type people with bad hairpieces, overbites, and runaway moustaches—tend to win stuff, whereas, typically, I do not.

Here, for the record, is a comprehensive list of things I’ve never won:

1. Anything

Chapter 2

But now, in the spring of the summer of my mid-week post-pre-pubescent adulthood, with my first novel virtually languishing on all the finest virtual shelves, I, or rather, that aforementioned tome (which I hereby duly name as my hereby duly named personal representative) has won something. Nay! Not merely something, but an actual award.

That’s right, imaginary fans and fictitious followers: Ways of Leaving won the “Best New Fiction” category of the 2014 International Book Awards.

Go, me!

And I have a feeling this is just the beginning.

Chapter 2.5

Now that I’ve finally broken my lifelong losing spell, I’m going to practice my look of dumbfounded disbelief for the Publisher’s Clearing House cameras, prepare the perfect European pucker for those snugly clad Tour De France bookends, and latch onto the World Cup title (winners don’t need bribes and threats). Then I’ll write my acceptance speech for that Nobel Peace thingy (I did separate a couple kittens once), and to top it off I’ll shyly agree, after a brief show of feigned humility, to be People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive (or Miss America, should the pageant approach me first).

If all of that goes as planned (and why wouldn’t it?) I’ll finally have the confidence to go after the one victory I truly care about. Fists clenched (unless my hands hurt), eyes unblinking (unless it’s dusty or too bright), I’ll bravely challenge my ruthless eleven-year-old to a no-holds-barred game of rock-paper-scissors.

Come and get it, thuglet!

Epilogue:

If, on the other hand, things don’t go exactly as expected, and this award (did I mention the award?) doesn’t boost my sales by a factor of shitloads, I may have to grow a runaway moustache and learn to mix drinks and embezzle.

]]>https://www.grantjarrett.com/winner/feed/7Father’s Day Reduxhttps://www.grantjarrett.com/fathers-day-redux/
https://www.grantjarrett.com/fathers-day-redux/#commentsSun, 15 Jun 2014 19:44:33 +0000http://www.grantjarrett.com/?p=641I was five or six when my father walked out for the last time, so if there was any observation of Father’s Day in our home while he... Read more »

]]>I was five or six when my father walked out for the last time, so if there was any observation of Father’s Day in our home while he was around, I certainly don’t recall it. After he was gone, it was my mother who was honored on Father’s Day, an appreciative nod to her expanded parental duties. Some twenty years later, having finally reconnected with my father, I learned that even when present, he was mostly absent. Or perhaps he was more like a human black hole, sucking all the emotional energy from those unfortunate enough to get caught in his torpid gravitational pull. “I was never really comfortable around children,” this father of five sons once told me with no hint of irony or discomfort, the way you might tell someone baked beans give you gas. And I’m sure it was true. He never paid much attention to us.

I realize that many men of my never-fully-formed father’s generation suffer from emotional constipation, but he was not only incapable of expressing emotion; he seemed to lack the capacity to feel. Oh yes, there were historical explanations for my father’s detachment, and I’m not unsympathetic, but don’t parents and aspiring parents have a responsibility to get past their own childhood traumas, to break the mold that broke them? Perhaps that’s a lot to expect, but if a child, your own child, isn’t worth the struggle, I can’t imagine what is.

With a cardboard cutout father and a mother who had her own demons to battle and scars to pass on, I was by no means an ideal candidate for parenthood. And although I came to believe, in my most optimistic moments, that I had the potential, perhaps even the instincts to be a good parent, I was aware of the dangers, nearly immobilized for a time by the knowledge that nothing I did would be as consequential, as impactful, as potentially damaging as raising a child. Eventually I overcame or ignored those concerns.

I know it doesn’t need to be stated, but I am far from a perfect parent, and certainly not impervious to my history, my genes, the various atmospheric elements that whittle and mold us, and though I try, though I think about it virtually every day, I’m not always successful in my efforts to shield my son from the emotional shrapnel that, like space debris, continues to orbit me. But unlike my father, a victim of his own experience and a product of his own time, I do make the effort.

Before I became a parent I had little interest in holidays, and the truth is I could still let them pass without notice. But I have come to understand the desire to celebrate the bond between a man and his child, and I know that when my son wishes me a happy Father’s Day there’s more to it than a card and a kiss. The love we share is expressed every day, and though he may question many things, I don’t believe he’ll ever doubt his father’s love, affection, appreciation, and respect. If he does, and if I’m still here, I’ll do everything I can to reassure him, not because I’m such a wonderful father, but because I love him enough to be the father he deserves, and to protect him, even if what I’m protecting him from is some damaged part of me.

]]>https://www.grantjarrett.com/fathers-day-redux/feed/2Reviewing the Reviewshttps://www.grantjarrett.com/loves-hates/
https://www.grantjarrett.com/loves-hates/#respondThu, 15 May 2014 02:34:27 +0000http://www.grantjarrett.com/?p=629As the reviews for Ways of Leaving begin to accumulate, I’ve noticed a trend. People either love the book or hate it, with very little middle ground. And... Read more »

]]>As the reviews for Ways of Leaving begin to accumulate, I’ve noticed a trend. People either love the book or hate it, with very little middle ground. And so far, at least, the difference appears to be directly related to what the opposing factions believe the book is about. Those who hate it either acknowledge that they don’t have a clue what it’s about, or believe it’s about a drunken guy trying to get laid and generally being nasty. Those who love it see far more beneath the surface, reflecting, not surprisingly, the book I believe I wrote: a book about a desperately lonely man who’s alienated from everyone including himself; a man whose motivations are not particularly obscure and whose impulses and actions are, at least in part, a response to his sense of isolation and the feeling of insignificance that’s stalked him since childhood; a man who is searching, like many of us, for a connection, a sense of purpose.

Does the protagonist drink too much? Why, yes, he most assuredly does.

Does he use sex to mask his pain? Without a doubt.

Can he be cruel and sarcastic? You betcha.

Does he act out and behave badly? Of course he does. He’s as human as you or me.

Is there a comforting, magical solution leading to a perfect ending with all the loose ends tied in a perfect symmetrical bow? Certainly not. This is not a Hallmark Movie.

Some might reasonably argue that it’s the writer’s job to connect with the reader, and that when that connection doesn’t occur, it’s because the work is flawed, which means that the writer has failed. My belief is that there will always be those who cannot or will not get past the surface—particularly if the surface is covered with wrinkles and warts and, perhaps, a few shards of broken mirror—those who don’t want to expend the energy required, or simply aren’t equipped to appreciate books that fall outside the mainstream, that demand a little more, that take risks with language or form, books that reveal unapologetically and without facile reassurances aspects of the human condition some would prefer to ignore or deny.

I know Ways of Leaving isn’t perfect; after all, it is a book written by a human being, by me, for gawd’s sake. And perhaps it’s not quite as wonderful as the positive reviews suggest, but I would rather have written a novel that deeply affects those willing to make the effort to understand it, than a book everyone can understand, but that, like the faint emanation of a passing butterfly’s wings, barely glances those few it touches at all.

]]>https://www.grantjarrett.com/loves-hates/feed/0Hanging On While Letting Gohttps://www.grantjarrett.com/hanging-letting-go/
https://www.grantjarrett.com/hanging-letting-go/#commentsTue, 29 Apr 2014 19:29:48 +0000http://www.grantjarrett.com/?p=619Life, it seems to me, is predominantly about letting go; letting go of the warmth and protection of the womb, the nourishment of the umbilical cord; letting go... Read more »

]]>Life, it seems to me, is predominantly about letting go; letting go of the warmth and protection of the womb, the nourishment of the umbilical cord; letting go of the breast, the cooing and coddling of childhood; of innocence, of youthful dreams, teenage certainty; letting go of the security of home, the assuring reliance on family, of the energy and enthusiasm we can only vaguely recall as, despite our protestations and denials, we enter midlife; letting go of our parents when they are too old to give any more and then again when they die; of friends who’ve changed in ways we can’t understand or accept, or who haven’t kept pace with our own changes; letting go of the irreclaimable joy of our infant children and then letting go again and again as they forge their own long path of leaving and letting go; letting go as they move on without us and letting go of our health, of the illusion of control, of the fragile façade of dignity in illness and old age; letting go as we realize that everything we’ve cared about has left or been left behind and letting go of the little we have left to hold on to because we finally understand that we’re already alone and irrelevant and there’s nothing to lose in the final letting go but pain, disappointment, habit, and the tiny fragment of resistance that has somehow survived.

Yes, this is a disheartening way to look at life, but if it is true, if life is as grim, depressing, and seemingly meaningless as I’ve portrayed it here, isn’t there something brave, even noble in living it as well, as honestly, as generously, passionately, and richly as we can? To struggle to live a good, productive life in the face of all of that, is courageous and noble. To do otherwise, is to discard like a handful of debris what may be life’s sole opportunity for transcendence.

]]>https://www.grantjarrett.com/hanging-letting-go/feed/2Vampire Whores from Mars!https://www.grantjarrett.com/vampire-whores-mars/
https://www.grantjarrett.com/vampire-whores-mars/#commentsMon, 24 Mar 2014 18:20:05 +0000http://www.grantjarrett.com/?p=613Now what? It’s not that I don’t have anything to do. It’s just that, with my novel’s release day and launch event uncomfortably behind me, if I don’t... Read more »

It’s not that I don’t have anything to do. It’s just that, with my novel’s release day and launch event uncomfortably behind me, if I don’t direct my obsessive energy toward getting my book into the hands of readers, I’m afraid I’ll fritter it away on inane, mindless tasks and repetitive motions like untwisting and re-lacing my shoelaces, arranging my clothes closet by color, or styling my toe hair.

What’s my sales rank today, this afternoon, now? Any new reviews? Any negative ones? Why don’t I have a movie deal yet? It’s cold in New York and Facebook is a traffic jam. Other authors have written books, are garnering impressive reviews and making sales, doing readings at the hippest bookstores, thinning out the already limited audience, STEALING MY READERS!

Of course that’s not true—the last part, I mean. But the truth is people (as in you) can’t read EVERYthing. They (as in you) can’t support EVERYone. You (as in they) have to be seLECtive. And I (as in obsessed) can’t seem to capitalize an enTIRE word. What’s WROng with mE?

My head’s stuffed with cabbage and clotted motor oil; deep sleep darts the other way whenever I approach; my jaw has been severely over-tightened with invisible barbed wire, and I’m slouching like a weary question mark. But this is it. This is the only first novel I’ll ever have published. Unless … unless I change my name! I could adopt a crispy new identity, rejigger the book’s title and find someone to publish it anew (that’s always easy), then just keep repeating the process until one of them is a critical success and a bestseller and one of me is a successful author with really cool author-specific eyewear and a job teaching creative identity switching and self-plagiarizing at a major crowdsource-underfunded community institution of nominally higher education no one ever heard of or will. Yay me!

Meanwhile, back at the computer, between gasps and groans I stalk Amazon, and every three minutes I Google my own (current) name, lifting the virtual lid to see if my “brand” is boiling, hoping for a simmering tsunami but finding so far only the gentle rising and falling of the minor tides, lukewarm and holding. I know it’s early, but I can’t just sit here feigning nonchalance.

So should I bark out the window? Or carry a basket of books on my bike and pedal around the city reading chapters into a loudspeaker like a small town politician on a corn beef hash budget? Should I post sentences or paragraphs on Facebook in hopes of snagging someone’s already overburdened attention, offer hints of my genius to reel those suckers (you lovely people) in?

At what point do (did?) people tire of these self-promoting posts, not just from me, but from all the other fine young men and women who have succumbed to the damned and damning artistic impulse, dedicating years of their tortured subsistence to the creation of a sumptuous feast that may never be tasted?

What I should be doing is getting back to work, writing, creating something more than pleading, bleeding ad copy. But if this book isn’t a success who will publish the next? So here I am typing out the minutes, as far from art as a sneeze is from a blowjob.

The truth is that there’s probably nothing I can say here that will be powerful, unique, compelling enough to seduce the audience most likely to appreciate Ways of Leaving. The book is the best tool I possess to draw readers to the book, but they have to read the book to know they want to read the book. And so I plead: Read the book! Which is sort of like saying, “Have sex with me! It’ll be great. I promise. You’ll be glad you did.”

But wait! Perhaps I should offer a choice: have sex with me or read my book. My sales rank would pop up in no time. I have a feeling it would shoot through the roof.